


The Work of a Moment

by eurydice72



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Mental Instability, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurydice72/pseuds/eurydice72
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Charles Town under siege, Flint wants only to destroy Peter Ashe the way he destroyed everything Flint had ever loved.</p><p>Until Peter utters the one word to ever hold sway over James's being.</p><p>Set in episode XVIII, going AU from the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Work of a Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cjmarlowe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/gifts).



> Happy holidays! Believe it or not, we actually matched on two different fandoms, but once I saw your request for Flint and Thomas, I knew this was what I had to write. The backstory we were given explained so much for me, and I was devastated by the end of season 2. So when you said you love stories that take a different fork in the road to canon, I thought, "This is my way to fix it." In a way, this is just as much for me as it is for you. I just hope you love it as much as I do.

  
_The charging of his enemy was but the work of a moment._ —Miguel de Cervantes

The world around Flint bled red, but all he cared to see, all that truly mattered in that single second, was the bleached fear in Peter’s eyes. Dirt raining down around them in a hail of destruction seemed a fitting tribute to the way the last vestige of his soul had crumbled at Miranda’s murder, as worthless to him now as Peter’s final plea.

At least, until Peter uttered the one word that had held sway over Flint’s—James’s—being from the first he’d ever heard it.

“Thomas…”

Flint’s lip curled as he clutched at Peter’s coat. “You don’t get to say that name.”

Killing came naturally to Flint, but never had he burned to stutter another man’s life to an end as he did right now, not even when Alfred Hamilton had begged for clemency. He could taste its coppery dissolution, feel the itch in the palm of his hand as he tightened his grip. His arm drew back, his steel hungry for its vengeance.

“He lives. Thomas. Hear me. He _lives_.”

The words were a waterfall crashing into rocks to drown out any and all who dared to venture too close. Flint froze, eyes narrowing as he tried not to get dragged beneath the surface. “You lie.”

“I swear to you, I don’t.”

“Your letter—”

“—was a sham done to protect you, to protect all of you.”

“More lies.” The memory of the night Miranda had received the letter was still carved into his heart. Standing by the fire as she read it aloud. The blurry heat blistering from the hearth. His veins like ice where each tragic syllable burrowed its way beneath his skin. “You’re desperate to stay alive.”

“Believe me or not, the onus is on you. Because if you kill me now, James, you’ll go to your grave wondering if you threw away your last chance to see Thomas again.”

He didn’t believe him. He couldn’t. That would cast every death he’d caused, men he’d loathed, friends he’d respected, into fresh light, exposing them so brightly he’d never be able to pretend there was any greater good at work in him. Thomas’s death had given him clarity. What could his return offer?

Everything he thought he’d lost.

“Where is he?” he ground out.

“Somewhere safe.”

“Here?”

“No. But you’ll never get to him without me.”

Peter’s verbiage suggested prison of some sort, which further ignited the storm inside Flint’s soul. With his father dead, why would Thomas tolerate such a state? And if he was free of Bethlem, why hadn’t he come for James or Miranda? Each additional question weighed against the possibility Peter told the truth.

And yet…

Flint yanked Peter against him, the tip of his sword digging dangerously over Peter’s heart. “Your death today would’ve been swift,” he growled. “But rest assured, if I find that these are more of your lies, I’ll make you wish I had killed you here instead of feeding you to the sea in pieces. Is that understood?”

A mute Peter nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, Flint spotted Vane darting behind one of the nearby buildings, so, with a firm grip on Peter’s coat, took off after him.

The moment Vane saw Peter, his serpentine gaze hardened. “What the fuck’s this about?”

At least Peter had the good sense to remain silent. “He’s coming with us,” Flint said.

The argument poised on Vane’s treacherous tongue. Flint stiffened, prepared to make his case via violence if the need arose, but Vane’s eyes flickered over him in keen appraisal. 

“He’s on you, then.” Vane turned his attention back to the street and their blocked path to the shore. “Though I wager the sight of him might make a man or two of his take pause before coming after us.”

As an advantage, he’d take it, though he had no intention of losing Peter to another’s man sword. Shoving Peter ahead of him as a shield, he began the arduous journey through the melee, back to his men and the future unclear before him.

James McGraw might have been the man who saved Peter Ashe, but it was Captain James Flint who slaughtered their way through the cluttered path to his ship.

* * *

Most of the crew saw Peter as a prisoner of war, taken to guarantee their captains’ safety out of Charles Town. Only two men saw through Flint’s stony silence as he shackled Peter in his quarters.

Silver, whose uncanny ability to see every angle to a situation almost frightened Flint a little.

And Billy, whose trust would never be offered without qualm again.

No more words passed between them before Flint left him under guard to see to the firing on Charles Town. Miranda’s vow for Peter’s little fiefdom would hold true. James could do that much for her, at least. But as he stood on the deck and watched the flames surge toward the skies, he felt no relief as he’d hoped. His thoughts were elsewhere, on the potential Peter had introduced, and it wasn’t until the horizon began to collapse upon itself did he succumb to their clarion call.

He excused the guard and waited until he was alone before venturing into the cabin. Peter remained where he’d left him, but upon his entry, lifted his head with a weariness Flint felt in his bones.

“Is it gone?” Peter asked.

Flint had no desire to discuss Charles Town. “Does it matter?”

“Of course, it does. It was my home.”

“Home.” Anger slashed through him at the banal term. “Perhaps if I hadn’t lost any semblance of my own a decade ago, I’d be more sympathetic to your loss.”

The first hint of rebellion flashed in Peter’s eyes. “You were the one who chose to leave.”

“I chose to see Thomas’s dream fulfilled,” he shot back. “Considering I thought myself responsible for destroying his life, it was the least I could do.”

“You ran away. Admit it.”

He wouldn’t, though the accusation stung. It held enough legitimacy to prick Flint’s ever-present guilt in failing to stand up to Miranda when he could’ve made a difference.

“If Thomas lives, why did you lie to us?” he said instead. Better to get back to the matter at hand than fall into a debate that would likely bring the ship around their ears when Flint lost the last shreds of his temper with Peter.

“I told you. To protect you.”

“From what?”

“From yourselves.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Really? You forget, James. You were my friends. I knew you better than you could ever know yourselves, because I was the only one who could see you with an even eye.”

Though Peter paused to allow a rebuttal, Flint held his tongue and stared at him, willing him to go on.

Peter sighed. “Every horrible story you ever heard about Bethlem was true. Lord Hamilton was counting on its reputation to frighten Thomas into denouncing both you and Miranda, but Thomas surprised all of us by refusing. It was only then that I realized just how truly he loved you.”

In all the time since meeting Thomas, only Miranda had ever openly acknowledged the depths of their feelings for each other. Peter had certainly recognized their affair, but never had he remarked that it might be anything more than affection. Hearing this outside testimonial to what had driven him all this time pounded at Flint’s defenses, forcing him to clench his jaw to keep the effects of how it shook him from undermining his authority to Peter.

“You said he was somewhere safe. Bethlem hardly qualifies.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Peter agreed. “Thomas was strong of heart, but his spirit was never its equal. As soon as I began to fear for his life, I used what means I could to get him out.”

“The only way out of Bethlem is in a pine box.”

“I had some power by that point. I even returned to London to give the story of his suicide enough authenticity to make it spread more quickly.”

“Lord Hamilton would never agree to such an arrangement.”

“He had no choice.” Peter grimaced as he shifted his weight against the pillar. “Must I remain tied up like this? I’m hardly a threat to all of your men.”

On that, he was wrong. Peter Ashe just might have been the most dangerous man Flint had ever known. His capacity to sway rational men without a twinge of remorse—for he believed beyond the shadow of a doubt that Peter held no regrets about the course his life had taken with his betrayal—was more fatal than any sword could ever be.

“But why the subterfuge?” Flint pressed. “Was that Lord Hamilton’s doing?” He knew even as he asked that it was not. The plan reeked of Peter’s machinations.

“I feared for Thomas.” 

He stated it without blinking, his eyes oddly clear of any of the panic that had plagued them in Charles Town. Flint was startled to realize Peter actually believed what he was saying, that he lacked the fear from before because he had the truth on his side. That meant Thomas _was_ alive, and the hope he’d thought extinguished began to burn again. His muscles trembled with it, and he folded his arms over his chest to shove his hands into his pits to maintain what watery hold over them he possessed.

“Bethlem was the real danger,” Flint said. “Once he was free, what more did he have to fear?”

“You. Your wrath.”

“I would never hurt Thomas!” The roar shook through him, propelling him forward until their noses nearly touched. He itched to beat the charge out of Peter until he lay as bloodied as his cohort in Thomas’s fate, but a quieter, more reasoned voice in him pleaded he stay his hand and not confirm everything Peter was vowing with those three little words. “I would’ve done anything for Thomas,” he went on, forcing his voice lower but no less deadly. “I _have_ done everything, so don’t you dare suggest Thomas could ever be harmed by me.”

His anger stoked higher by the pity he now saw reflected in those blue depths. “Captain Flint was already a scourge,” Peter said. “I had no idea what he might do in Thomas’s name. So I hid the truth until I found a way to get through to the friend I’d once known rather than the pirate he’d become.”

“You never even tried,” Flint sneered. “And Miranda was hardly unapproachable.”

“Look at what happened to Alfred Hamilton and tell me again how I could ever trust Captain Flint to behave rationally.” Peter shook his head. “Did you never question why I changed my stance on pirates so drastically after that? I wanted you afraid to come to me. For Thomas’s sake, I needed you to stay away as far as possible. He would’ve been devastated to think he was the reason for such bloodshed.”

Like his previous allegations, this too was irrefutable. His Thomas was a dreamer, and while he’d known of the more base measures James and Miranda had taken on a daily basis, they had done everything in their power to shield him from them. Thomas’s place was to conceive a bright future, while theirs was to sweep away the darkness from his path. 

The night Flint wore Alfred Hamilton’s blood as a shroud, he butchered not only the pain of his past, but also any hope he wasn’t entirely damned in God’s eyes. He’d resigned himself to an eternity without Thomas, but he did so with the certainty Thomas’s father would never see the gates of heaven, either.

Flint sat back on his heels. “Where is he, then? In England?”

“No, I couldn’t risk anyone discovering the truth. I knew Miranda still had friends there, people who would be quick to offer her whatever news they discovered.”

“Paris, then? Amsterdam? Where?”

“Here,” came the gentle response. “He’s being cared for at a place called Landgrave.”

Flint knew of it, though he’d never been. An island south of Charles Town, it was only scant hours away if the winds were right. But Peter’s other words held more sway than the knowledge Thomas could feasibly be so close.

“Being…cared for?” 

“Bethlem is not kind to anyone,” Peter said. “Thomas is alive, but he is not the man you once knew.” His gaze tracked Flint when he straightened. “That is why I never told you. I feared—still fear—the truth of his well-being will drive you to deeds more despicable than those you already claim.”

“Then those are on my head, not yours.” As he marched for the door, his heels echoed against the walls, each one a step across another grave. “I suggest you rest. We’ll be at Landgrave long before dawn. I intend for us to beat the sun to its shore.”

He didn’t look back as he left Peter behind.

* * *

The seas were kind as they cut through the night. James stood at the prow, lulled by the ship’s rhythms, and watched the black waters part before them.

Thomas was alive. Even now, hours beyond Peter’s initial confession, James could hardly hold the magnitude of it within his grasp. It was a bird of its own creation, soaring beyond his reach with promises and portents to frighten the hardest of men. What did it matter if Thomas was ill? He breathed. That was enough. That would always be enough.

He heard the boards creak the moment before he felt the heat at his shoulder. How a man as large as Billy Bones could move so silently, James would never understand.

“Are you staying?”

A simple query from anyone else. From Billy, it carried the weight of a hundred men.

“I don’t know,” James admitted. “It depends on what I find.” 

“Without you, Vane will run our odds of survival to the ground.”

When James glanced at him, he found Billy’s eyes on the distance, too. “You do realize the time for negotiations are past, don’t you?”

“Firing on Charles Town made that rather clear, yes.”

“Vane knows what’s at stake.” 

“Yes, but Vane always fights for himself first. You might not always put your men before you, but at least I know your deeds are not always self-motivated. Given the choice, I’d rather stand with the man with a vision of the future than the man who is blind to anything but the moment.”

James would have laughed if he didn’t need Billy’s support in the coming hours. Would Billy be as cavalier about Vane if he knew what other futures now held their hands out to James? He doubted it. Then again, there might not be another at all if this turned into a fool’s errand.

Neither spoke again until the edge of Landgrave etched out of the night sky. 

“I said this to Vane, but I’ll remind you of it, too.” Billy’s voice was a soothing rumble. “To England, we are one and the same, regardless of what you find on that island.”

“Yes.” On that, they were in full agreement. He might’ve wanted to bury Flint once he’d fulfilled Thomas’s dream, but he understood now that was idle wishing on his part. Too much had transpired for him to ever be able to lay the man to rest. He was as necessary to his existence as he yearned for McGraw to be once again. “I won’t forget.”

* * *

Peter had been right. James needed him to set a safe foot on Landgrave.

With tensions running so high with local natives, military outposts dotted the coast. Between the lack of a proper port and the added armed men, most pirates avoided the island unless absolutely necessary. James felt the weight of their stares the second his boot met the sand, especially when Peter was recognized.

Their smiles meant word had yet to reach them about the siege at Charles Town, but James tensed when they asked about his impromptu visit.

“A last minute decision,” Peter said with ease. “James is an old friend from London, just arrived a couple days ago. I couldn’t let him continue on his journey without bringing him here. He’d never forgive me, otherwise.”

James tried to smile when the others chuckled, but his rising anxiousness to see this through to what felt like an inevitable end made it impossible. He could only silently thank the fates that Peter had not sold out his true identity and pray it meant exactly what he needed it to mean.

Two of the men escorted Peter and James to a modest cottage tucked out of sight of the water. The grounds were neat, with flowers arranged in tidy beds, but James was arrested by the sight of a tall, slightly stooped figure standing at the far corner of the house. A lap rug draped his shoulders, the hands dangling beneath the loose cuffs of his shirt long and thin. While his trousers were baggy on him as well, James recognized the shape of the man as well as his own reflection. Thomas Hamilton would never be a stranger, no matter how many layers Time scraped away from his flesh.

“Leave him be,” he heard Peter murmur as his feet propelled him closer. He hesitated and glanced back, but Peter’s hand was on one of the man’s arms, holding him back. When his eyes met James’s, he nodded toward Thomas.

Every pace brought another detail into stark relief. Hair gone ashen with the passage of the years. Weathered lines feathering from the corners of his eyes as he squinted into the sun. A jagged scar trailing beneath his collar that brought every protective instinct James possessed to the fore.

His mouth was sawdust when he finally stopped. “Thomas?”

No reaction. It was as if he wasn’t even there. 

He took another step and repeated, “Thomas?”

He held his breath in hope of a response, but still, nothing came. Edging sideways, he rounded Thomas until he could see him full-on, but while Thomas glanced briefly at him, his gaze returned to focus on something beyond James’s shoulder.

Still, even without acknowledgement, his heart leapt. He’d long ago resigned himself to only seeing Thomas in his dreams though those were rarely peaceful. This living, breathing Thomas was older and less polished than the idealistic man he’d loved, but the gentleness in his eyes was the same, the soft curve of his mouth as tempting.

“What is so interesting out there?” James mused, turning around to follow his line of sight.

Trees barricaded them from the rest of the population, but there, in a narrow break, was a sliver of brightest blue-green, a ripple of wind along its surface.

The corner of his mouth lifted. The sea. That, he understood. Next to Thomas, he’d loved nothing else greater.

“He’s almost always out here when I come visit,” Peter said behind them. “He’d stand here for hours if Mrs. Watson wasn’t around to keep an eye on him.”

James looked back, but Thomas hadn’t acknowledged Peter, either. “Mrs. Watson?”

“His nurse. She was a local midwife before I hired her. Don’t worry. She doesn’t know anything about what happened in London. Nobody here does.”

“How is that possible?”

“Because to them, he’s Thomas Peck of Suffolk, here to convalesce after a long illness that left him partially deaf and more than a little addled.”

“And he’s never refuted that?”

“I don’t think he can. Nobody’s heard Thomas speak since I got him out of Bethlem.”

It was no wonder Peter had worried on James’s reaction. If he’d learned of the repercussions of what Thomas had endured before, he would’ve set the seas alight in vengeance.

Now, though, with the loss of Miranda still so raw, he wanted only to take Thomas in his arms and never let him go.

“Tell Mrs. Watson her services are no longer needed.” His full attention was back on Thomas, as it should’ve been all these years. “I’ll compensate the loss of wages.”

For the first time since Charles Town, Peter grew alarmed. “You can’t dismiss Mrs. Watson. Thomas can’t look after himself.”

“He won’t have to. I will.”

“But you’re not a nursemaid, James. You haven’t the foggiest idea what it entails.”

The look he leveled at Peter was fueled with anger. “Forget the fact that I’ve tended more wounded men than you could even fathom. You owe me this. You owe this to both of us.”

“People will talk.”

“Let them. We won’t be around to hear it anyway.”

“He hardly belongs on your ship! If you take him—”

“You’ll do nothing,” James finished. “For if you do, if I discover you’ve intervened in any way, I promise that you will never see your daughter again.”

Peter paled, but held his ground. “You’d have to find her first.”

“You don’t think I made those arrangements long before you ever mentioned this place?” He clicked his tongue in reproof. “I may have underestimated you once, but never again. If I don’t return to my ship within two hours, my crew will ensure everyone here suffers the same fate as Charles Town.”

He made no bluff. As much as he’d wanted to believe Peter, he wouldn’t fall prey to his deceit again. He'd told Billy what was to happen if he didn’t come back. For all their differences, he knew Billy would follow through on his orders.

Just as Peter could tell now that James would destroy anything that stood in his way.

“You’re making a mistake,” Peter said, but his tone lacked the urgency of before.

James stared him down. “My mistake was not fighting for him ten years ago.”

* * *

His second foray onto the ship was met with less fanfare. Billy was the one who helped Thomas climb aboard, though Flint was quick to task him with unloading what meager belongings Thomas brought with him. They consisted of a valise of clothing and a small box of trinkets he’d collected during his stay on Landgrave, like a shell the color of black marble or the beads one of the natives had gifted him not long after he arrived.

“Where are all his books?” James had asked Mrs. Watson as she packed up his things.

She’d shrugged. “He’s never asked for any.”

 _How could he?_ he wanted to rage. While Thomas yielded to guidance, he’d spoken to no one since his release, walled inside his own head where God only knew what monsters remained from Bethlem to terrorize him. But instead of finding a way in, his caretakers merely let him wander, albeit within their protection, always gravitating to that same view, never smiling even when confronted with beauty.

No more, James vowed. He would do everything in his power to show Thomas everything he’d always loved about the world, the power within the pages, the comfort of human contact. Even if it meant giving Vane the lead in their fight to keep Nassau for themselves, his priority now was the mute man who shuffled along beside him to his quarters.

Billy left them alone once he’d deposited Thomas’s possessions by the door. James saw the question in his eyes, especially since Peter had stayed ashore, but now was not the time for answers.

“It’s not quite like London,” James heard himself saying sheepishly. He brushed past a motionless Thomas to gesture toward the lone bed. “But what is mine is now yours.”

The soft shuffle of Thomas’s shoes across the floor caught James by the throat. He held his breath, expecting to feel a touch to his shoulder, tender and wanting, but nothing came. Disappointed, he glanced back to find Thomas standing at the porthole, staring at the endless sea.

“Once we’ve set sail, you can get a view from the deck,” James offered.

Thomas didn’t look back.

Peter’s warnings kept ringing in his ears as he busied himself with unpacking the valise. The doctor at Landgrave said the hearing loss was partial but permanent, that more likely it was a mental defect that prevented Thomas from interacting with others. James wanted to tell him to take his “mental defect” and shove it someplace nobody else was likely to ever find it, but now, cloaked in the same silence Mrs. Watson said was the norm, he had to wonder how extensive the trauma really was.

Did Thomas even remember him? Was his punishment for failing Thomas all those years ago to live out the rest of his life as a nameless ghost?

Thomas hadn’t moved away from the window by the time he was done, leaving James little to do but take a seat and watch him. Time slipped away, as elusive as the waves lapping at their hull when they lifted anchor, with each man locked in thoughts left a mystery to the other.

When dinner was brought to them, Thomas allowed himself to be led to the table, though thankfully, did not need to be fed like a child. He ate with greater gusto than a man of his spare size seemed to merit, finishing long before James had consumed half of his meal. Without the distraction of food, his attention flitted around the room, never lighting on any one element for more than a moment.

The bed. The window. The desk. The floor. Each was the same. Each was meaningless.

James let him rise without censure, to better use momentum to explore his surroundings. When he was confident Thomas was merely curious and not a danger to himself, he resumed eating, eager to have the meal over with so he could enjoy the same freedoms as Thomas. He doubted he would gain much else but the pleasure of having Thomas breathing the same air as him, but on this, their first night back together again, that would more than suffice.

Something heavy slid across the table until it nudged against his elbow, startling James into yanking his arm away. He looked down to find a heavy book staring back at him, Thomas’s slender fingers trailing across its leather spine.

Their eyes locked, only for a moment but it felt like an eternity passed between them before Thomas’s gaze flashed away. He took his seat opposite James again, folding his long hands in his lap as he waited in silent anticipation.

“I suppose a little reading is as pleasant a way to spend an evening as anything else,” James said with a half-smile. More relaxed, he reached for the book, then froze when he spotted the title.

_Marcus Aurelius_

His eyes crashed back into Thomas’s. Though nothing appeared different in them, the world had shifted on its axis yet again.

Thomas knew. Locked away in that skull of his was the memory of who they had been to each other, whether he was capable of uttering a word in confirmation or not. He would not have chosen this text otherwise, nor would he regard James with such careful expectation if he didn’t truly understand what it would mean.

James’s vision blurred. He blinked rapidly to clear the unshed tears, but his fingers still trembled as he opened the book.

He cleared his throat. He didn’t need to see the words to whisper, “Know no shame.”

And he wouldn’t.

Not now. Not then. Not ever again.


End file.
